Roma Health Scholarship Programme
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ROMA HEALTH SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAM Roma Education Fund Scholarship Program |
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The Roma Education Fund announces the opening of the new application cycle for the Roma Health Scholarship Program, for eligible Roma students pursuing medical education and pharmaceutical studies at vocational or at university level in Macedonia and Serbia. The program will also accept renewed applications submitted by the RHSP beneficiaries of the 2011-2012 academic year from Bulgaria. The funds for the Roma Health Scholarship Program (RHSP) come from Roma Education Fund (REF) and the Open Society Foundations (OSF).
REF Roma Health Scholarship Program
The Roma Health Scholarship Program (RHSP) seek to support Roma students who are/would like to pursue medical education in their home country or countries of their residence. The students pursuing or intending to pursue education to attain degrees of medical nurses and medical doctors at state-accredited medical and medical-vocation schools (private or state) are eligible to apply. The scholarships are not automatically awarded for the subsequent academic year; students can apply for renewal subject to successful completion of the prior academic year.
1. Eligibility Criteria for Applicants
5. Communication of Selection Decisions
6. Stages of Application and Deadlines
7. Additional Benefits of RHSP
1. Eligibility Criteria for Applicants
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Eligibility criteria of the REF/Scholarship Program set standards, according to which applicants’ qualifications are assessed. The Program Applications are screened against eligibility criteria. The applicants who do not meet the eligibility criteria of the Program are not further considered in the academic competition.
Note: all shortlisted applicants to be in the first year of studies at any academic level will be required to participate in a personal interview. (see below details on interviews).
REF can support under RHSP Scholarship scheme the same applicant throughout his/her studies for:
- one Vocational Medical Degree, with transfer to another school/specialization allowed only once;
- one Undergraduate Medical degree, with transfer to another school/specialization allowed only once;
- one Graduate Medical degree, for maximum three years (Medical Residents), and
- one Postgraduate Medical degree, for maximum two years (Doctoral Studies).
Applicants who receive an academic scholarship from other organization(s) for the academic year 2012-2013, are not eligible for REF RHSP. Employees of REF, the Open Society Foundations or national foundations of the Soros Foundations Network (SFN), as well as those individuals working on projects funded by the REF or who receive honoraria (consultants, fellowships) from REF or SFN, are not eligible for REF Scholarship. The applicants may apply to different REF scholarship schemes simultaneously if eligible according to eligibility criteria of each scheme. At the conclusion of the selection process, if accepted for more than one REF scholarship scheme, the concerned applicants will be required to choose only one.
Applicants should:
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declare themselves as Roma; |
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declare as willing to appear publicly as Roma; |
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have been or will be accepted at a state-accredited medical university or medical post-secondary vocational school in their home country or country of residence, as full-time students in the upcoming academic year. Persons planning to get enrolled in a university or vocational school in the upcoming year, but not enrolled in one at the moment of application, are also eligible. Please note that the home country and country of residence has to be Macedonia or Serbia. Note: in case of Bulgaria, only students who benefited of an RHSP scholarship in the 2011-2012 academic year may apply; |
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pursue studies for obtaining a vocational, Bachelor, Master, or Doctorate degree; |
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submit a complete Online Application Form (OAF) by the program’s set deadline; |
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submit a Statement of Purpose that expresses their academic goals and/or accomplishments and shows their commitment and motivation to study (as specified in OAF); |
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submit an Essay based on the topic(s) specified in the OAF; |
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provide an official transcript of the university grades/ or high school grades from all completed academic years or university/ or high school, as well as the latest completed Fall semester (September – December 2011, or November 2011 – January 2012). If the applicant has not been enrolled in school/university recently, he or she should provide certified copies of the latest received grade transcripts and /or diplomas; |
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submit at least one detailed and informative Reference Letter, describing the academic performance and/or extra-curricular (including Roma-related) activities of the applicant; |
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study in the medical field; |
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provide evidence of acceptance in full-time university studies within an accredited university or post-secondary vocational school in the applicants’ own country or country of residence by presentation of an original university enrolment certificate for the academic year for which he or she is applying for scholarship support. |
2. Selection Criteria
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Selection criteria for REF scholarship schemes take into account the quality of the information and documents submitted. The applicants must strive to comply with the selection criteria and present competitive application materials. The selection criteria for all Program countries and schemes are as follows:
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competitive Grade Point Average (GPA); in case of higher-than-anticipated demand for scholarship support in Program countries, the GPA criterion may become more demanding; |
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the content and structure of the statement of purpose; |
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the academic quality and structure of the essay; |
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participation in academic seminars, conferences, workshops, summer schools, and/or competitions, including Roma-related activities, constitute an advantage in the overall score; |
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performance at the interview (for those applicants invited to the interview). |
Further considerations
Major considerations of the selection process of the Scholarship Program include the following:
- The Program classifies the applicants in two groups for further selection: renewal applicants and new applicants.
Renewal applicants - Students who received a REF scholarship for the previous academic year and are applying to renew their scholarship.
New applicants - Students who did not receive a REF scholarship in the previous academic year, regardless of whether they received it in earlier years.
- The Program also classifies the applicants in the group of those who are pursuing or will pursue vocational-level studies, and those who are pursuing or will pursue tertiary-level studies. The applicants compete only within each group, i.e. applicants from the two groups do not compete against each other.
- The Program has established GPA as one of the criteria for selection. The minimum GPA that applicants should have in order to be selected for the scholarship depends on the competition of each year.
3. Decision Making Mechanism
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REF/SP is responsible in the selection process for the eligibility check only, as made by Country Coordinators. Further, REF/SP responsibility is to ensure that the established mechanism and criteria are observed and utilized accordingly by the relevant bodies, as explained bellow. Those interested in further details regarding the roles of SP and Country Coordinators are kindly invited to read the Operational Manual.
Selection of scholars from the pool of applicants is carried out by a National Selection Board (NSB)composed of 3 members. Two of the NSB members for the RHSP are appointed by the Ministry of Education and respectively by the Ministry of Health, while one member represents civil society.
4. Selection Process
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Key steps are explained below.
Step One: Verifying whether the requirements of the Eligibility criteria of the Program are met. The step consists of a technical verification of each application, which is done by the REF/SP Country Coordinators.
Step Two: Evaluating the application content. The evaluation is carried out by the REF/SP NSB in respective program countries. The NSB members review the submitted applications by assigning scores to each application according to a pre-established set of criteria and consequently by ranking all the applications from a particular scheme and country. Based on the ranking system, applicants are either shortlisted (on accepted conditionally list or on the waiting list), or rejected.
Step Three: Conducting personal interviews with the applicants who are going to study in the first academic year of the level (vocational, Bachelor, Master, and Doctorate) in 2012-2013. The short-listed applicants will be invited to a compulsory interview with the NSB members in each program country (see below details on interviews). After the interviews the ranking of candidates and the classification of applicants into the “accepted conditionally list” and “waiting list” in a program country is updated.
Step Four: submission of enrolment certificates in universities for the 2012-2013 academic year: the short-listed applicants will be also required to submit by the set deadline an enrolment certificate proving that they are enrolled in the academic program specified in the application in the 2012-2013 academic year.
Step Five: finalization of the selection process: after the completion of the four steps mentioned above, the program reanalyzes the lists of short-listed candidates to determine the final lists of beneficiaries. The short-listed candidates who were ranked within the “accepted conditionally” list and who submitted an adequate enrollment certificate by the submission deadline become beneficiaries of the program. From the same category, those candidates who have not submitted an adequate enrolment certificate by the submission deadline are rejected and replaced with applicants from the waiting list.
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IMPORTANT: The new applicants will be invited to participate in the Program’s Orientation Session. During the meeting applicants will receive detailed information regarding the roles and responsibilities of REF/SP and if scholarship beneficiaries. This session will take place in the Program countries between June and September, 2012. The venue and the dates of such sessions will be communicated to the applicants by e-mail.
Shortlisted applicants for RHSP will be also required to participate in the Advocacy Camp (see point 7 below). The notification for the Advocacy Camp will be sent to the shortlisted applicants via e-mail by the Country Coordinators. Shortlisted applicants who will fail to attend the Advocacy Camp will not be considered for the further selection process. |
5. Communication of Selection Decisions
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The Program communicates the outcomes of the selection process to the applicants via e-mail, on two occasions:
- Firstly, after Step Three mentioned above (end of July /beginning of August) when applicants will receive either an official Rejection Letter with specified reasons for rejection, or a Notification Letter containing instructions on further steps to be undertaken by the candidate in order to stay in the competition;
- Secondly, after Step Five mentioned above (October) when applicants will receive either an official Rejection Letter with specified reasons for rejection, or an Acceptance Letter.
The applicants may appeal against the National Selection Board’s decision within one month time from the moment of receiving the selection result from the Program. The appeals should be sent to REF/SP to the scholarships@romaeducationfund.org
Please use this email address only for appeals. For other enquiries please contact the Country Coordinator.
The REF/SP team categorizes the appeals and is giving them a resolution. Depending on the nature of appeals, REF/SP may decide to forward appeals to the Scholarship Program Ombudsman, who reviews individual appeal cases based on the materials and evidence provided by the applicants, the Program, and the NSB or ISB.
6. Stages of Application and Deadlines
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In order to be considered for scholarship in the academic year 2012-2013 you will have to comply with the two deadlines/stages described in detail below.
Stage One – Deadline: June 15th, 2012
Online Application Form (OAF) - must be completed exhaustively; applicants must provide all the requested information and documents.
The Reference Letter(s) - must be scanned and uploaded as attachments within the OAF, and must:
- be written by an individual familiar with the applicant’s academic or/and Roma-related activities; such person can be the applicant’s university professor, an NGO leader or work supervisor;
- bear the original signature and stamp (if available) of the reference person;
Grade transcripts - must be scanned and uploaded as attachments within the application form and:
- be an official academic grade transcript from all completed academic years as well as the latest completed semester of September – December 2011 (in case applicants have not been enrolled in school/university lately please provide certified copies of the latest received grade transcripts and /or diplomas);
- bear the original stamp of the school or university and signature of the school or university representative.
ID/passport - must be scanned and uploaded as attachments within OAF, and must:
- be legible and, if an ID, have copies of both sides.
Contractual Obligations - is a part of the OAF that needs to be accepted by Applicants in order to be further considered for the academic competition:
- the Contractual Obligations constitute a legally binding article serving as an agreement by the applicant to follow the REF/SP requirements and conditions if the applicant is selected for the scholarship;
- the Contractual Obligations will be reviewed and agreed within OAF by each applicant;
- signing the Contractual Obligations does NOT entitle or guarantee the selection of the applicant for a scholarship.
Stage Two - Deadline:
- October 15th 2012.
Enrolment certificate - must be scanned and uploaded as attachment to the application form and must:
- be an original enrolment certificate from the applicants’ university or school showing that he or she is enrolled for the academic year 2012-2013;
- contain the applicant’s full name, his or her year of study, name of university, faculty, department, specialization and type of study (i.e. full time, part time, distance etc.);
- NOT bear corrections unless stamped and signed by the issuing person.
7. Additional Benefits of RHSP
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Mentorship
In order to help RHSP beneficiaries and increase their changes to successfullygraduate, they are provided with continuous mentorship support.
The Mentorship Program:
- will support the professional development of Roma medical students in all Program countries;
- will assign 1 mentor per 2 students, the former will be able to deliver support on both academic and professional level;
- will also help tackle discrimination, when confronted with such or when witnessing Roma being discriminated against in health care facilities.
Advocacy Camp Training
Shortlisted applicants for the RHSP scholarship will be invited to participate in the RHSP Advocacy Camp training, which is held annually for a period of 7 days in August or September. During the Advocacy Camp, invited applicants and potentially their mentors will be offered training to acknowledge, embrace and maintain their Roma identity.The Training will also equip them with negotiation skills to enable them to act as agents for change in their communities. It will also give students a broader perspective on human rights issues impacting the health of Roma communities and the role that health advocates can play on local, national or international level. Finally, the advocacy camp will also provide the opportunity for networking and relationships to develop between the scholars.
General curricula:
1. Personal development/fostering leadership skills of the fellows:
- minimal elements of communication;
- mediation, negotiation, conflict management;
- inter-cultural dialogue;
- developing a personal development plan;
- time-management;
- basics in computer skills;
- project proposal writing;
- Roma culture and internal Roma diversity (target mainly mentors) or the role of health in the Roma culture (data on the ideas that the Roma community has with regard to health, awareness of the cultural elements involved in the relationship that exists between Roma men and women and health, information regarding the health status of the Roma population).
2. Advocacy training:
- right to health in the framework of human rights;
- country’s health legislation and relevant anti-discrimination provisions;
- public health issues;
- basic advocacy tools, lobbying, community organizing for change, networking, opportunities to participate more actively in EU networks in order to maximize advocacy and information sharing opportunities;
- advocacy strategies for improving access to health services;
- moderated session on obstacles preventing Roma access to quality health services;
- raising health awareness in Roma communities;
- (lack of) frameworks for protecting and promoting health-related rights, such as codes of ethics for health professionals, patients’ rights charters, complaints mechanisms of any kind, or human rights offices concerned with health rights (Ombudsman, National Council on Combating Discrimination, Revised European Social Charter).
The invited applicants’ participation in the Camp is compulsory and a condition for being eligible for the last stage of selection for scholarships.
RHSP Conference Grants and Language CoursesGrants:
Besides the regular academic RHSP grants, RHSP beneficiaries can also apply for additional funds for studying foreign languages and for attending international or national academic conferences. All the information about these additional funding opportunities is available here.
Applicants are strongly advised to read carefully the requirements and specific guidelines of the Program and contact the Country Coordinator in case they require clarifications.
| Please note that according to the REF /SP Program Policies and Procedures, applicants found responsible for sending forged documents shall not be further considered for any REF funded Programs. |
